A memorandum of understanding about purchasing opportunities will be signed at 3 p.m. Friday, Sept. 25, among The University of Texas at Austin and the Texas Association of African American Chambers of Commerce (TAAACC) and eight other Texas state agencies.
The signing event will be in the Stark Library on the fourth floor of The University of Texas at Austin’s Main Building.
The memorandum is an expression of each agency’s commitment to increasing the participation of Texas-based African American-owned businesses in the bidding process and to increase annually the fraction of each agency’s total expenditures awarded to these businesses.
The memorandum sets forth “Good Faith Effort” principles to which each signing agency ascribes. They are summarized as follows:
- Publically disseminate information about purchasing opportunities.
- Improve purchasing procedures that make it easier to do business with Historically Underutilized Businesses (HUBs).
- Work to increase the number of Texas businesses that are HUB certified.
- Assist in providing HUB chamber member training.
- Document good faith efforts toward meeting the goals of this memorandum.
- Increase the percent of awards made to African American-owned businesses.
The original Memorandum of Cooperation Agreement with the Texas Association of African American Chambers of Commerce was signed on Feb. 2, 1999, under the sponsorship of Texas Sen. Royce West. Agencies that were among the original signers of the memorandum were the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, the Texas Department of Mental Health and Mental Retardation, and The University of Texas at Austin.
The nine state agencies scheduled to sign the memorandum Friday include Texas AandM University, the Texas AandM System, Texas Controller of Public Accounts, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, the Texas Department of Health and Human Services Commission, the Texas Department of Transportation, Texas Tech University, The University of Texas System and The University of Texas at Austin.
